


Domesticated

by songofthe52hertzwhale



Category: Dalton Academy Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-07 16:29:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 8,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14084967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songofthe52hertzwhale/pseuds/songofthe52hertzwhale
Summary: Julian and Logan try to be adults.They're not very good at it.





	1. Cooking

“Okay,” Julian says, flipping the page, “So now we just put the tray in the oven, and then in forty-five minutes we should actually have our first home cooked dinner! Easy enough.”

“Forty-five minutes?” Logan says, frowning down at their chicken, “It’s almost eight, and we still have forty-five minutes until this is ready? I'm _starving_.”

“Well…maybe if we raise the temperature a little bit, it’ll cook faster?”

He reaches for the oven knobs, turning the temperature up as high as it’ll go. Logan scoops the tray up, and slides it onto the rack.

“I’m so proud of us,” Julian grins, “We’re like real grown-ups now.”

Logan rolls his eyes, “We’re twenty-four, Julian. We’re homeowners. We’re definitely grown-ups. Now lets go make out on the couch until the chicken’s ready.”

Julian grins and jumps off the counter, grabbing Logan’s hand as he skips out of the kitchen.

They’re pretty far into it - Julian’s on Logan’s lap, his shirt discarded somewhere on the floor - when an ear-shattering screech erupts from somewhere in the house. Julian yelps and promptly slides to the floor, and Logan sits straight up, eyes wide.

“What the fuck is that?” Logan exclaims, wincing.

“Fire alarm,” Julian says, a bit panicked, “Shit, Logan, it’s a fire alarm.”

“Get out,” Logan stands, yanking Julian off of the floor, “Get outside now, Jules.”

“What, you’re gonna go investigate alone? Like hell I’m letting you do that!”

“Fuck, fine just…stay next to me.”

He drags Julian along with him, breathing a sigh of relief when he notices the hall leading to the front door seems to be clear. They pass the kitchen door, and Logan frowns.

“It’s our chicken,” he says, dropping Julian’s wrist and moving towards the oven, which is billowing clouds of dark gray smoke.

“Logan, don’t touch it!” Julian shrieks, but Logan’s already reaching for the oven door. A larger cloud of smoke comes streaming out, and he chokes, eyes watering.

“Logan!”

“I’m fine!” He gasps, slamming the door shut again and flipping the switches off, “Dinner’s a little bit on fire, though.”

He backs up, hand sliding around Julian’s arm again. Now that they know the fire is safely contained in the oven, they’re both relaxing a bit. Julian's eyes are still wide, and Logan practically has a death grip on Julian's wrist, but they're breathing evenly, watching as the smoke lessens around their kitchen.

“…what do we do?” Julian asks, after a small pause, “Do we…should we just move? I mean the oven’s obviously broken, right?”

“Maybe we can just…buy a new oven?”

Julian frowns, “Should we like…call someone?”

"Derek," Logan says, firmly, "We should call Derek."

“No. No we’re adults we can figure this out,” Julian whips out his phone, typing something quickly into Google, “Okay. Okay it says if your oven catches fire just to turn it off, leave it closed and it should go out on its own. You did that already, so...I guess we just wait?”

They stand there for a few more minutes. After a while, the smoke subsides, and there doesn't appear to be any kind of glow through the oven door. Julian starts to creep forward, but Logan pushes him back.

“Stay where you are,” Logan says, authoritatively. He steps forward, slowly, and gingerly touches the handle. It doesn’t hurt, like it had the first time, so he pulls it open and winces.

“Um, Julian? Our chicken is a little burnt.”

Julian sighs, “Yeah. Yeah I figured. Fuck it, I’m ordering a pizza. I _knew_ we should've started with spaghetti.”

He taps away at his phone, and Logan grimaces as he dumps the blackened chicken into the garbage. It sticks to the pan, so he tosses that, too. When he turns back around, Julian's staring at the oven, looking upset.

"Hey," he says, squeezing Julian's shoulder, "It's fine, babe. No more fire. We don't have to cook ever again."

"That's not..." Julian trails off, and shakes his head. When he looks back up, he's smiling, and tugs at Logan's hand, "Forget it. Come on, let's go make out more while we wait for the pizza."


	2. Building Furniture

“Julian, this is ridiculous,” Logan says, tossing the seventeen-page booklet of instructions aside, “Why didn’t we just pay the extra $100 to have the delivery guys assemble this, again?”

“Because we’re adults, Logan, we can put together a bookcase ourselves.”

He frowns down at the pile of screws in his hand, looking unsure. Tentatively, he picks one up, sliding it into the marked hole of the piece of plywood he’s holding. It seems to fit, and he grins, grabbing the screwdriver.

“Uh…Logan? This doesn’t…the screw’s shaped wrong, I think.”

Logan leans over, “Oh. That’s weird. So the screwdriver is just like a straight line, but the screw has a little “x” shape. Maybe they sent us the wrong screws?”

“Maybe. I just…if I angle this, I think I can do it?” Julian starts attempting to screw, but the screwdriver slips out of place after every rotation. He grits his teeth and keeps going, trying not to show his frustration.

“This is going to take us days, Julian, can we please just call someone?”

Julian drops the screwdriver and looks up, pissed, “Logan, if you’re not going to help me just get out of there, alright?”

“…fine,” Logan stands, “I’m going for a run, have fun doing something we could easily hire someone else to do.”

Julian just grunts out an incoherent responses and goes back to the task at hand, every so often pausing to wipe sweat from his forehead.

When Logan returns from his run, nearly an hour later, Julian’s sitting cross-legged in front of a rather crooked bookcase, looking smug.

“Only got one piece left, babe,” he says, smirking, “And you thought I couldn’t do this.”

Logan crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the wall, watching Julian as he fits the last piece on top. He frowns, and rotates the piece once, twice, three times.

“Problem, _babe_?” Logan says, raising an eyebrow.

“It doesn’t fit,” Julian says, looking disheartened, “I don’t understand, it’s supposed to go just like this…”

Logan walks over to examine Julian’s work, “Well. It might be because you have at least two of these pieces on upside-down. And I’m pretty sure this piece was just part of the packaging.”

Julian stares for a moment.

“Fuck!” He exclaims, dropping the last piece and burying his face in his hands, “Fuck I thought I could do this.”

“It’s not a big deal, Julian, we’ll just buy a new one and pay the assembly fee. It’s not like we don’t have the money.”

“It’s not about the money, Logan! I just wanted to…we should be able to do this.”

Logan rolls his eyes, “Julian…”

“Yeah. Yeah I know, I get it, you told me so.”

“That’s not what I…”

“Forget it,” Julian says, brushing off his hands, “Just…I’m gonna go take a drive.”

He storms out angrily, and Logan’s left standing in the wreckage of their bookcase, confused.


	3. First Aid

“First aid, Julian, seriously?”

“What, it’s useful!” Julian says, turning into the parking lot of the city hospital, “We both have shit luck with getting hurt, we need to know how to take care of each other.”

“Or I could just bribe paramedics until they devote their best doctors to taking care of you, like I usually do.”  
“You bribed them…you know what, I don’t want to know,” Julian parks and shuts off the engine.

Logan follows him out of the car, shoving his hands into his pockets as they walk up to a small building to the side of the ER. The receptionist smiles at them and stands.

“Mr. Larson, if you’ll just follow me this way, I’ll take you to Ms. Harrison. She’ll be your instructor.”

Julian smiles at her, and reaches for Logan’s hand, tugging him along.

“Come on, Lo,” he says, bumping his shoulder, “This’ll be fun! Maybe you’ll have to practice CPR on me.”

“Surprisingly enough, I’m not super turned on by the idea of you pretending to be dead while I blow air into your mouth.”

Julian sighs, but just leads Logan into the room. It’s small, set up for just the two of them, and there’s an array of medical supplies spread across the table. At the end of the room, a petite red-haired woman is fiddling with a projector, flipping switches on a computer until the screen hums to life.

“Oh, Mr. Larson, Mr. Wright, you’re right on time!”

She beams at them, and gestures for them to sit.

“Okay, so we’re just going to start with the basics here - wound cleaning and bandaging.”

Logan rolls his eyes, but Julian seems to be taking this very seriously, listening intently and asking questions as he follows the steps.

“Okay, Mr. Larson, that’s a good start,” the instructor says, peering at the tourniquet Julian’s attempted to make, “Next time try a little tighter, though. And a bit closer to the wound, see all the space here?”

Julian nods and changes his technique as she moves over to look at Logan’s handiwork.

“Wow, Mr. Wright, that’s perfect! Exactly right, good job!”

Logan just leans back in his chair, bored. Julian’s half-glaring at him from across the table, hands clenched tightly around the bindings in his hand.

They continue to move through various techniques, and Logan somehow easily grasps every one. He’s barely paying attention, almost falling asleep during the instructional videos they’re shown. Meanwhile, Julian’s getting more and more frustrated at each of his mistakes.

“Slow down on your chest compressions a little,” he’s told, when they start practicing CPR, “Okay, a little faster than that. Good, keep working. Oh, Mr. Wright, that’s perfect, keep that rhythm.”

By the time they finished, Julian just looks mildly pissed off. The instructor is still cheery, handing them each their own first aid kits.

“Make sure you brush up on what you learned every so often,” she says, shaking each of their hands, “it’s one of those skills you start to lose after a while. Practice makes perfect!”

She chats a little more as she escorts them out, but pauses at the door, looking sheepish.

“Feel free to say no,” she says, scooping a _Something Damaged_ DVD set from the front desk, “But my younger sister is a huge fan, I’d be her favorite person in the world if I managed to get her an autograph.”

Julian finally smiles, taking the box from her hand and pulling a marker from his jacket pocket. He scrawls his name across the front cover and hands it back, looking considerably less annoyed.

“Thank you so much,” she gushes, beaming at them, “You two have an excellent day.”

They turn to walk out, and Julian tosses the car keys at Logan.

“Your turn to drive,” he says, “You’re right. That was dumb.”

“I thought it was kind of fun, actually,” Logan says, “I feel like I actually learned something, you know?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Julian rolls his eyes and slide into the car, propping his feet up on the dashboard.

“Hey,” Logan looks sideways at him, a small smile on his face, “If it’ll make you feel better, I can practice CPR on you when we get home.”

“Fuck off,” Julian scowls, and Logan laughs, pulling out into traffic.

After a pause, Julian speaks again.

“…I wouldn’t say no to a blowjob, though.”


	4. Chicken Soup

Julian’s buried up to his chin and blankets, pouting up at Logan with teary eyes and a red nose.

“Help,” he says, weakly, “Everything is _awful_.”

“Okay,” Logan frowns and tucks the blankets in a little more, “Is that better?”

“Now it’s too hot,” Julian whines, “Make it not _hot_.”

Logan starts to pull the blankets off, but Julian just pulls them back.“No I need them. Open the window or something.”

With a heavy sigh, Logan gets up, sliding the window open a few inches. There’s a slight breeze that ruffles Julian’s hair, and he starts shivering. Logan slides it back, keeping it just the slightest bit cracked, and Julian doesn’t seem to notice. His eyelids are fluttering a little, and Logan assumes he’s about to drift off to sleep before he sneezes, loudly and violently.

“Fucking ow,” he complains, one hand coming up to rub at his head, “It hurts, Lo. Make it stop.”

“I can’t just make you not sick, Julian. Just try to go to sleep, okay?”

“I can’t. My head hurts. I need medicine.”

“Right,” Logan says, nodding, “Medicine. We have some, right?”

Julian just groans and curls up under the covers, sniffling.

“Okay. I’ll be back. Stay here.”

Julian manages to raise an eyebrow at him, somehow still looking rather judgey even with the thin sheen of sweat covering his skin. Logan hurries to the restroom, opening cabinets in search for medication. He rifles through a startling array of skin and hair-care products, frowning in confusion when he finds a miniature flatiron nestled beside Julian’s toothbrush. He finally locates several bottles in the back of a mirrored cabinet he hadn’t even realized opened, and returns with his hands full.

Julian forces himself to a sitting position and peers at the bottles Logan presents him with.

“Pepto-Bismol?” He asks, holding up the bubblegum-pink bottle, “That’s for diarrhea, Logan. And this is hydrogen peroxide, are you _trying_ to kill me?”

“I just grabbed what I could find, okay?” Logan scowls, turning the rest of the bottles over in his hands, “Look, this one’s Nyquil, that’ll help you sleep right?”

Julian reaches for it, taking a large swig straight from the bottle. He pops a couple of Ibuprofen for good measure, praying for the throbbing in his head to lessen.

Logan carefully tucks him back into the blankets and fluffs his pillows.

“I could make you soup,” he offers helpfully, “That’ll help, right?”

Julian hums, nodding, “Juice, too?”

“I can definitely manage juice,” Logan stands and heads downstairs.

The kitchen cabinets are much easier to deal with, most of them empty save for a thin layer of dust. He quickly locates one housing several cans and scans the labels, picking out a tomato-basil soup he thinks Julian will like. He can’t find a can opener, though, and winds up stabbing violently at the can with a knife. He nearly stabs himself in the hand, but manages to get the can open enough to pour into a pot. There aren’t any instructions written on the label, so he turns the heat to medium and leaves it, moving to the fridge to search for juice.

They have a half-empty carton of orange juice, but Logan sniffs at it and quickly decides to toss it. There doesn’t seem to be any other juice, but he does find a mango-flavored frozen daiquiri mix in the freezer. He thaws it under the faucet until it doesn’t feel icy and pours it into a glass. Once that’s done, he turns back to the soup, which is nearly bubbling over the top of the pot.

He grabs at it, pulling it off the flame and pouring it into a bowl. It looks okay, except for a weird frothy layer on top. He scoops off as much as he can with a spoon, and then grabs the bowl and the glass and trots back upstairs.

Julian’s half-asleep when Logan walks back in, but he smiles blearily and reaches out.

  
“You brought me food,” he says happily, and Logan sets the dishes on the nightstand.

“I did,” Logan says, feeling a little proud of himself, “Look, I’ll even feed you.”

Julian props himself up again, obediently opening his mouth when Logan guides a spoonful of soup to him.

“Fuck,” Julian says, immediately spitting it out, “ _Shit_ , Logan, it’s burning.”

“Soup’s supposed to be hot,” Logan frowns and tastes for himself, “Holy _hell_ that’s boiling.”

Julian’s fanning at his own mouth, and Logan reaches for the glass, tilting it up to his lips.

“Try this, it’s cold.”

Julian sips, slowly, but winces right after he swallows, “Is that alcohol?”

“It was the closest thing we had to juice!”

The brunet sighs and burrows back into the blankets, “Thanks for trying. No offense, though, but I think I’m just going to try to sleep instead.”

“I tried,” Logan says, defensively, “It’s not my fault you’re so picky about food.”

“Logan, shut up,” Julian cracks one eye open, glaring, “Come over here and pet my hair or something.”

Logan sighs, but shifts to sit beside Julian, gingerly pulling his head into his lap and stroking the soft brown strands. Julian makes a pleased noise and settles in, eyes closing again.

As he drifts off, Logan makes a mental note to add juice and soup to their next grocery list.


	5. Laundry Day

“I don’t understand,” Logan says, peering at the notes Julian had taped to the washing machine, “Why do we have to celebrate whites and colors? That seems racist.”

“I think it’s so the white clothes stay white? Like you know on all those shows where they put a red sock in with white shirts and the shirts all turn pink and then the guy has to wear a pink shirt and since masculinity is fragile he bitches about it for thirty minutes?”

Logan blinks, “Okay, so we’re putting parental controls on the tv so you can’t binge watch Friends all weekend anymore.”

“Just put the clothes in the damn machine, Logan.”

Logan laughs, but tips the laundry basket upside-down over the machine, pushing in the stray socks that don’t quite make it in the drum.

“How much detergent do we use?”

Julian looks at his notes, “It says a capful.”

He reaches for the bottle and measures out a cap, pouring it in over the clothing. They both frown for a moment.

“Does it look like that’s…”

“…that isn’t enough, is it?”

Julian pours a little more in, “We just have a lot of clothes. There’s no way that tiny bit will clean everything.”

“Right. Perfect,” Logan looks at the next step, “Okay so we just select the water temperature and wash cycle…it has an option for ‘ _whites_ ’ so I guess that? What water temperature do we use?”

“Well hot cleans things better, right?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” Logan says, turning the knob, “So now we just wait, then?”

Julian’s grinning beside him, and holds his palm out for a high five.

“We’re finally getting good at this adult thing,” he crows, “We had a rough start, but we fucking _nailed_ this one.”

“Relax, Julian, it’s just laundry.”

“Hey,” Julian reaches up and takes Logan face between his hands, “It’s us growing. And maturing. And also proving to Derek that we’re not totally useless without him.”

“Is that what this whole thing is about? Proving Derek wrong.”

“It’s not about Derek,” Julian rolls his eyes, “It’s about…nothing. Come on, let’s go grab the next load.”

He takes the stairs two at a time and walks into their closet, gathering up clothes from the floor.

“Which one of us owns red jeans?” He asks, holding up a pair, “I’ve never seen these before.”

“Definitely you,” Logan says, taking them, “See how stretched out the ass is?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Julian shoves a pile into Logan’s arms, “Take these downstairs.”

“Yes sir,” Logan says sarcastically, turning on his heel to carry the clothes to the laundry room. As he descends the stairs, he hears a strange, sloshing noise, and walks a little faster.

“Fuck - Julian!” He calls, dropping the clothes on the floor, “I think we broke something, there’s bubbles everywhere!”

He hears Julian cursing upstairs, quickly followed by the pounding of footsteps before Julian slides into view, staring at the laundry room in horror.

“How…what the fuck?” He rushes forward, nearly slips on the wet floor, and slams his hand on the buttons of the machine repeatedly, until it turns off.

“I don’t understand,” he says, quietly, “We did everything right!”

“Maybe we used too much soap?”

Julian sighs, slumping forward until his upper body’s resting on the top of the machine.

“How are we this bad at stuff?” He asks, morosely.

“We’ve never had to do this shit before, Julian. We still don’t have to do this shit. You used to love having other people do all the boring crap for you.”

“I know,” Julian sighs again, “I just wanted…never mind. We’ll just leave all this stuff for the cleaners to do, like normal.”

Logan’s a little confused by how upset Julian seems, and starts to reach for him when Julian pops back up, a smile on his face.

“I want a burger,” he says, as if nothing’s happened, “Come on, let’s go to In-n-Out.”


	6. Spring Cleaning

“Logan, can you try vacuum in a pattern or something? It’s putting lines in the carpet.”

Logan tries (and fails) not to roll his eyes, but nevertheless changes his pattern. Julian’s headed to the bathroom with a basket of cleaning supplies, and Logan’s fairly sure he has no idea how to use a single one. Logan just continues to trace mindless lines with the vacuum, pretending they hadn’t _just_ had it cleaned last week.

When he’s pretty sure he’s covered every inch of the carpet, he turns the vacuum off and sighs. Julian had woken him up that day — on a _Sunday_ , of all things, a day Logan typically reserved for sleeping in and lazy sex — talking about how it was time for them to learn to clean, which apparently involved hitting every single room of their very large house.

They’d done a pretty good job so far; dusting was easy, and, with the exception of a few streaks, they’d gotten the windows cleaned up pretty well. Conveniently, they had something called a _Swiffer_ that scrubbed the hardwood floors without issue, and Logan had only had to drag the vacuum out for the bedroom.

There’s a sudden loud shriek from the bedroom, followed by a horrendous crash, and Julian comes stumbling out, coughing.

“…everything okay?” Logan asks him, furrowing his eyebrows as Julian chokes.

“Fuck,” he gasps, fanning at his face, “I…the toilet cleaner wasn’t…so I poured bleach in…it’s like fucking _tear gas_ , fuck.”

He hurries over to the window and swings it wide open, flipping on their ceiling fan for good measure. His eyes are still watering, and he keeps coughing, but he seems mostly okay, so Logan figures it's safe to find this funny.

“Just stay out of there for a while,” he tells Logan, “Maybe it’ll clear up on its own?”

“Well I’m gonna take this back downstairs anyway,” Logan says, “Guess which one of us is totally _killing_ this cleaning thing, by the way?”

Julian tries to glare, but is quickly distracted by another coughing fit.

Logan just grins, and heaves the vacuum cleaner up to rest on one shoulder. It’s meant to look cool - flipping the cleaner over, holding it like a baseball bat. But as it’s in the air, something unhinges, and a cloud of dust explodes around Logan’s face.

Julian’s mouth falls open.

Logan closes his eyes and holds his breath, half-praying that when he opens his eyes, the dust will be gone. He’s not that lucky, though, and he finds it looks worse than he believed. There’s a roughly three foot circle of dust and dirt around him, and his clothes and skin are covered in a thin layer of grime. It's disgusting, and the carpet looks a thousand times worse than before.

He's scared to look up at Julian.

He hears a faint snigger, and when he does dare to raise his eyes, Julian's standing there, still teary-eyed and holding back coughs, but also smirking at him.

"You're right," Julian says, snidely, "You're  _killing_ this."


	7. Grocery Shopping

“Grocery shopping has to be easy, right?”

Julian has a spring in his step as they walk into the store. He grabs a cart and immediately passes it off to Logan, walking into the closest aisle. He obviously expects Logan to follow him, and Logan half wants to just remain where he is. But they do need food, and Julian had been insistent that they do the shopping themselves, so he follows, reluctantly.

Julian has an actual, hand-written list in his hand, and from the brief look Logan had caught, it appears he’d organized it by aisle.

“Okay,” Julian says, looking up at the shelves, “I tried to stick with stuff we actually know how to cook. So it’s mostly noodles and soups and stuff.”

“We can check the frozen food aisle too,” Logan says, “They have like microwave dinners and stuff, for when we’re super lazy or when it’s really late and all the restaurants are closed.”

“Great idea, Lo!” Julian beams at him and starts down the aisle, throwing a couple of boxes of noodles and jars of sauce into the cart. They’re about to move onto the next row of shelves when a woman standing by the rice gasps.

“Oh my gosh,” she says, “You’re Julian Larson, aren’t you?”

Julian turns with a smile, “Hi. Yeah, that’s me.”

“Oh wow,” she gushes, excitedly, “Can I please get a selfie with you?”

Logan rolls his eyes, but Julian just leans in and poses, cheek pressed to the woman’s.

“Thank you so much,” she says, “I’m sorry to bother you while you’re shopping I’m just such a huge fan!”

“You could never bother me,” Julian tells her, and actually kisses her cheek, “Have a great day, alright?”

She’s practically swooning as they leave the aisle, and Logan turns to mutter to Julian.

“You don’t have to kiss them, you know,” he says, and Julian just laughs.

“Relax, babe, you’re the only one who gets mouth kisses,” he bounces up on his toes and pecks Logan’s lips to showcase his point, then resumes shopping.

“Soups!” He says, excitedly, “We got chicken noodle - for next time one of us gets sick. One of these vegetable ones, because Derek’s always getting on me for not eating enough veggies. Ooh this one looks good!”

He’s throwing an array of cans into the cart. Logan reaches up and picks out a handful he knows they might actually eat — tomato soup for Julian, clam chowder for him.

“Alright, so fruit and vegetables next, and then we can look at frozen stuff?”

“Are you only buying vegetables to prove to Derek that we actually eat vegetables?” Logan asks, eyebrow raised. Julian scoffs but doesn’t argue with him. Instead, he heads to the produce, squinting at the bins of fruits and vegetables.

“So what are we getting, exactly?”

“You like apples, right?” Julian grabs a plastic bag and shoves in some apples, “Should I get some red and some green?”

“Carrots?” Logan suggests, “You like carrots.”

“Oh look they have those pre-bagged salads!” Julian exclaims, “That’s healthy, right?”

They spend a few minutes bagging up anything that looks good, and Julian examines the cart with a rather serious expression. He picks up one of the potatoes Logan had thrown in.  
“What do you do with these?” He asks, “Like how do we turn this thing into mashed potatoes?”

Logan shrugs, “Maybe we just stick it in a blender or something? We’ll google it.”

Julian nods and tosses it back in the cart, gesturing for Logan to follow him.

“Holy crap,” he says, as they enter the freezer section, “Logan they have frozen pizza.”

“I told you—“ Logan starts, but Julian’s already wandering down the aisle, opening various doors and pulling out an assortment of boxes. He returns to dump at least four pizzas in the cart, then jogs back to pick out more.

“Could we try for a little variety, Jules?” Logan asks, when Julian dumps another armful of pizzas on him, “Maybe like…bagel bites? Taquitos?”

“Whatever you want, Lo,” Julian says idly, scanning the shelves for more food.

The cart is practically overflowing by the time they leave the aisle, and Julian has to walk beside the cart to hold boxes in place.

“Alright,” Logan says, staring at the piles of food, “We’re checking out now, before you decide to hit the candy aisle too.”

“Oh candy!” Julian looks up, hopefully, but shrinks at Logan’s glare.

“Oh my god!” They hear suddenly, from one of the lines. A teenage boy breaks away from his family, making a beeline towards Julian, “You’re Julian Larson. Holy crap. I’m like, in love with you.”

“Are you now,” Logan says, dryly.

“Not like in a creepy way,” the boy says, laughing, “I just…wow. Can I get you to sign…”

He looks around, patting down his pockets.

“Um…this…gatorade receipt?”

Julian laughs, and slides his own jacket off his shoulders. He pulls a silver marker out of his pocket this time, and scrawls his name across the collar.

“Here ya go, kiddo,” he says, holding it out. The boy’s eyes go wide.

“You’re…oh my god you’re giving me your jacket?” He takes it, almost reverently, staring at the signature in awe.

“Take care of it, alright? Dry clean only,” Julian winks, and guides Logan into line, leaving the boy gaping behind him.

“That was a bit much, don’t you think?” Logan asks, and Julian just waves it off.

“I have a dozen jackets, it’s fine.”

He starts pulling food out of the cart and shoving it onto the counter. The cashier’s looking at them with wide eyes, and Logan can’t tell if she’s starstruck or just overwhelmed by the amount of stuff they’re buying. It takes her nearly ten minutes to ring up everything, and she turns to them with a big smile.

“Okay, your total is $421.79.”

Julian reaches for his pocket, then freezes.

“…your wallet was in the jacket, wasn’t it?”

“Um. Yes,” Julian bites his lip, “Could you take care of it babe?”

“Yeah, sure I…” Logan slides his hand into his own pocket, “…I left my wallet at home.”

The cashier looks mildly horrified now, eyes scanning over the many, many bags piled in front of them.

“Um,” Julian smiles at her, charmingly, “I’m really sorry, but we’re going to have to cancel this whole thing. Logan?”

He reaches for Logan’s hand and darts off the moment they’re linked, hurrying out of the store before anyone can yell at them.

“Fuck,” he says, when they’re safely out of range, “Fuck, now we have no food and we embarrassed ourselves.”

“You embarrassed yourself,” Logan corrects, “Everyone’s gonna talk about how Julian Larson skipped out on his groceries, but nobody’s gonna mention me.”

“You’re mad that I kissed that woman on the cheek, aren’t you?”

Logan smirks, throwing the keys at Julian.

“You’re temporarily banned from mouth kisses, _babe_.”


	8. Painting

“So we’re really going with gray for this wall? Every color in the world, and we’re picking _gray_?”

“You told me I could pick, remember?” Logan points a paintbrush threateingly at Julian, “You said if I agreed to help, I got to pick the paint we use.”

“I know I did, just…gray?”

“Drop it, Jules.”

Julian sighs and squats down to open the paint can, “Hand me the brush, please.”

“Wow, I even got a please out of that one,” Logan hands one of the paintbrushes over, “Are these really big enough? That wall is like ten feet tall and like twenty feet wide, and this brush is maybe three inches across.”

“I ordered these big paint roller things too, but they didn’t ship in time,” Julian says, standing up with the paint.

“We couldn’t have just waited for them to get here?”

“No, we couldn’t,” Julian explains, patiently, “I start filming tomorrow and I’m going to be crazy busy for the next two months. We’ve been talking about painting this wall for a _year_.”

“ _Getting_ it painted. Like _paying_ someone to paint it. Not doing it ourselves.”

“Just come over here and help, Logan.”

Logan sighs and moves to stand beside him, watching as Julian dips his brush into the can and starts painting the wall with long, even strokes.

“It’s soothing, see?” he says, encouraging, “Come on, paint.”

Logan rolls his eyes but complies, joining Julian in slapping paint on their wall. They paint, side-by-side, for about twenty minutes before Julian rolls his shoulder and winces.

“Is this hurting your arm?” He asks, setting the brush down and stretching.

“It’s a little sore,” Logan admits, and drops his brush as well, “Break time?”

“Yeah, I think we’ve made a pretty good dent,” Julian takes a few steps back and examines the wall, then makes a face, “It’s like…five feet. We did maybe five feet. And I can still see the old paint through the gray.”

“What? It’s light blue the gray should totally cover it,” Logan backs up as well, and his grimace matches Julian’s.

It’s true - the section they’ve managed to paint is tiny, and the wall still looks more blue than gray. Logan’s seconds away from making a snarky comment, but Julian looks almost sad when he looks over, and he changes his mind.

“Okay, so we probably just need to do more than one layer, right?” He tries to make his voice upbeat, “We’ll take a short break and start again, and when the wall’s painted gray we’ll start over with a second coat.”

“Yeah,” Julian says, after a pause, “Yeah let’s do that.”

He leans into Logan, smiling when Logan drops a kiss on the top of his head.

In the end, it takes them all day to paint the wall. It’s nearly ten at night by the time they finally step back, sweaty and sore and exhausted, to examine their work.

It’s not even close to perfect. The corners are messy, gray paint seeping onto the wall adjacent, and the ceiling has a few gray splatters as well. They’ll have to have someone to scrub paint off the hardwood, too.

“It doesn’t look the way I pictured,” Julian says, staring at their wall, “It’s kind of splotchy.”

“It’s painted, Julian, what more did you expect?”

“I don’t know. I just thought…”

“Hey,” Logan takes his hand and squeezes, “We didn’t blow anything up, and neither of us is sick or injured. I think we can count this as a win, don’t you?”

Julian sighs but turns back to the wall, tilting his head as he examines it.

“…yeah. Yeah it’s pretty good, I guess.”

Logan frowns, “Jules, do you wanna tell me why this is so important to you?”

“What? I just wanted a nice wall!” He says, a little defensively, “We have a nice house and I want the walls to be nice and I thought it would be fun, okay?”

“…sure,” Logan says, “It was fun. But let’s get you to bed, okay? You look exhausted and you have a five o’clock calltime tomorrow.”

Julian nods, and leans into Logan as they walk upstairs. He still looks a little upset, but Logan chooses to chalk it up to exhaustion, and doesn’t question him again.


	9. Ironing

“Logan?” Julian calls from the bathroom, “How’s it going? Do you need any help?”

“I think I’m perfectly capable of handling an iron, Julian,” Logan says, laying the suit jacket down over the ironing board.

It had taken him a good ten minutes to figure out how to unfold the damn thing, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be too hard - lay the clothes across the board, turn on the iron, and press down on the wrinkles until they un-wrinkle.

In fact, Logan’s so confident in his ability to iron that he’d told Julian he’d handle both of their suits, dismissing him to go perfect his hair before they leave. It could take upwards of an hour for him to get the swoop above his eyebrows just right, so Logan’s got plenty of time to get their clothes straightened out.

The iron’s steaming a little, now, so he assumes it’s ready. He sets it on the jacket and slowly drags downward, smirking as he watches the wrinkles leave the fabric.

“This is cake, Julian,” he calls out, pushing the jacket to the side to get at the other sleeve, “We’re gonna look fucking fantastic.”

“You got mine too, right?”

“Of course I do,” Logan says. He glances up, sees Julian’s suit still hanging over the closet door. He leaves the iron where it is and crosses the room. He grabs Julian’s suit, then walks back to the board. The iron is steaming, where he left it, and there’s an odd smell permeating from the fabric.

He drops Julian’s clothes immediately, lunging for the iron and pulling it up. There’s a large, rust-colored stain right on the lapel of his jacket, and Logan mutters a curse under his breath. He sets the iron aside and rubs at the stain with his hand, but it doesn’t budge.

“Hey,” Julian says suddenly, popping his head out of the bathroom, “Does this look okay?”

“No,” Logan responds, too quickly, “No I think uh…you used too much gel. It’s kind of shiny.”

Julian looks horrified and ducks back into the bathroom. Logan hears running water, and almost feels guilty, but he’d really prefer Julian to not see this right now.

Julian had handed him a spray bottle of water with the iron, for some reason, and Logan douses the stain with water and dabs at it with a cloth, praying desperately for a miracle. It’s still not coming out.

Logan makes a quick decision, and balls up the ruined suit, kicking it under the bed. He has more in the closet, he’ll just pick another plain black one and hope Julian doesn’t notice.

He moves quick, this time being extra careful with the iron and focusing only on the obvious wrinkles. By the time Julian emerges from the bathroom again, Logan has both suits laid out on the bed, and is putting away the iron.

“Okay, so now it’s kind of doing this weird curling thing, but I think I can rock this look, what do you think?”

“It looks great,” Logan grins at him, “Beautiful as ever.”

Julian beams and tucks a stray strand behind his ear, “Thanks, Lo I…that’s not the suit I bought you.”

Logan stays very still, watching anxiously as Julian reaches for the suit on the bed, “Logan, you did the wrong one. This is Versace. I promised Reed we’d both be wearing Van Kamps tonight! They put out a press release and everything.”

He sighs and heads to the closet, focused on picking the right suit. 

“…um, Jules? You won’t find it.”

“What do you mean?”

“I ruined it,” Logan repeats, “I left the iron on the jacket for too long and it burnt and it’s totally ruined.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to be mad.”

“So,” Julian says, slowly, doing that slow-blink he always seems to do when he’s pissed off, “You decided lying to me was the better option?”

“I know. It was dumb, I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to stress you out.”

Julian exhales, slowly, “Where is it?”

Logan leans down, retrieves the destroyed suit from under the bed. Julian takes them and examines them for a moment.

“Okay,” he says, “You’re gonna wear the pants. They’re fine. And you’re going to walk in holding the jacket over your shoulder. You can definitely pull off that whole I-don't-care-about-any-of-youvibe.”

“So you want me to be you the day of freshman orientation.”

Julian looks up from his examination of the suit, a soft smile on his face.

“You remember what I looked like the day we met?”

“Of course I do,” Logan says, simply, “I may have been stupid but I wasn’t _blind_ , Jules.”

Julian stares at him with that same soft look for a moment, then hands him the suit, still looking pleased.

“Get dressed, our ride should be here any minute.”

They pull on their suits, and Logan tries the pose Julian had explained in the mirror, examining himself from all angles. Julian was right, he has to admit, he does manage to pull off the look.

Julian’s smiling, when they leave, and Logan’s a little less worried about how weird he’s been lately.


	10. Babysitting

Logan’s had a frankly exhausting day.

Work had been an absolute _nightmare_ , someone had recognized him as _Julian Larson’s husband_ outside the sandwich shop he’d stopped in for lunch and nearly caused a riot, traffic had been a clusterfuck, and he hadn’t managed to find a single good song on the radio during his drive home.

He’s _so_ looking forward to getting home.

Julian isn’t working the next two days — a break he desperately needed, despite how much he argued against it — and he’d promised to order dinner from Logan’s favorite Chinese place for them. What he wants, more than anything, is to eat dinner, take Julian to bed for some wild sex, and sleep until his migraine fades.

So when he walks into their house and realizes that’s not what he’s going to get, he freezes in place and shuts his eyes.

“Julian,” he says, slowly, “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

He’s met with silence, and he forces his eyes open. Julian’s smiling sheepishly at him, a tiny bundle of blankets cradled in his arms.

“It’s a baby,” he says, holding the bundle up a little, “Isn’t she _perfect_?”

“Why,” Logan says, trying not to _lose it_ , “Is there a _baby_ in our house?”

“Because Nathan needed a babysitter and I told him we’d love to watch her for a few hours.”

“A few hours? So like, he dropped her off at noon and he’ll be here any second to pick her up?” Logan knows he can’t be that lucky, especially when Julian’s smile fades to a forced upturn of lips.

“She got here twenty minutes ago. He’s picking her up at ten.”

Logan sighs heavily and drags a hand through his hair, “I’m gonna go change and shower, because I feel like crap. _Please_ tell me you at least have dinner ready.”

Julian grimaces, “Um, I kind of forgot about it until like five minutes ago? It won’t be here for an hour.”

“Great,” Logan snaps, “Cool. Crying baby and no food. Fantastic.”

He shoulders past Julian, ignoring the hurt, confused look on his face. The baby just blinks at him as he walks bye.

He’s ten minutes into his shower when he starts to feel guilty. He knows he’d overreacted a little, but Julian had brought a _baby_ into their house without letting him know, and he’s just way too exhausted to deal with this.

After he towels off and pulls on more comfortable clothes, he heads back downstairs. It’s almost disturbingly quiet, and he’s pretty sure he smells ginger chicken. Julian’s standing beside the table, setting out food cartons. He looks up when Logan approaches.

“I called the restaurant,” he says quietly, “Told them I’d pay double if they could deliver within half an hour. And I put the baby down for a nap, so we can eat and then you can go upstairs and watch tv or something and I’ll take care of her myself.”

“Jules…”

“I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you first.”

“Yeah. Yeah you should’ve.”

Julian just bites his lower lip and takes a seat, waiting for Logan to join him.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” Logan says as he sits, “You’ve been really fucking weird lately, Julian.”

“I just…I just wanted…”

Logan waits, and Julian finally meets his eyes.

“You don’t want kids, do you?”

“…what?” Logan’s totally thrown off by the question, “I don’t…what?”

“Kids,” Julian repeats, voice wavering a little, “You don’t want them, do you?”

“I hadn’t…” Logan blinks, considering, “I haven’t really put much thought into it, I guess? I mean we’re still pretty young, you know? It’s not like we’re running out of time for something like that.”

“But do you?” Julian presses, “Do you think you’ll want them, ever?”

“I don’t know,” Logan says, honestly, “I’m not really great with kids. And you and I can barely take care of ourselves, how are we supposed to… _oh_.”

He looks at Julian, who’s now refusing to meet his eyes. He picks up a fork, starts awkwardly poking at the plate of orange chicken in front of him.

“Julian is that what this has all been about? Have you been _testing_ me?”

“Not you,” Julian murmurs, “Us.”

“So the cooking and the painting and the grocery shopping…”

“I might’ve…I was at lunch with my mom a few months ago, remember? That day you couldn’t come because you had a dentist appointment?”

Logan nods, and waits for Julian to continue.

“And there was this…there was this kid, right? Like maybe two or three, and he wandered away from his parents and wound up by our table, and he was just so cute, and my mom saw my face, and she said that you and I weren’t mature enough to handle kids and I should stop thinking about it.”

“She said what?”

“But the thing was I wasn’t thinking about it,” Julian says, on a roll now once he’s started, “But then she said that, and I _started_ to, and I realized that we weren’t. At all. We don’t do anything ourselves, Logan. We pay people for _everything_.”

“That’s not true…” Logan starts, but Julian cuts him off.

“We can’t do laundry. The best thing we can cook is spaghetti, and it takes both of us. And I want to be a dad. Not _now_ obviously, but I do. I know I do. But if we can’t even take care of ourselves, what would we do to a _baby_?”

He looks so distressed, and Logan rises from his seat, moves to kneel beside him.

“Hey,” he says, taking Julian’s hand, “Look at me, okay?”

Julian does, a little teary-eyed.

“We’re not all bad, you know.”

Julian scoffs, and Logan presses a finger to his lips.

“My turn to talk, okay? Sure, we burned dinner when we tried to cook. And maybe we suck at painting and we fucked up doing laundry and I should probably NEVER be allowed to touch an iron again, but we’re not totally incompetent. We knew exactly what to do when the fire alarm went off. And sure, you suck at first aid and I suck at taking care of sick people, but I was pretty damn good at CPR and you always know what medicine I need when I feel like shit. All the other stuff, we can get people to do. I think it’s pretty clear we shouldn’t allow you to grocery shop when you have fans everywhere.”

Julian laughs a little, at that, and Logan grins squeezes his hand.

“We’re still learning,” he says, “We’ll get better. And one day, in the very far-off future, just so we’re clear…we’ll be good enough to take care of a weird, wrinkly, tiny human too.”

“Yeah?” Julian smiles, “You really think so?”

“I do,” Logan leans in, and they kiss softly. He slides a hand into Julian’s hair, and the sharp, shrill cry of a baby starts to ring in his ears.

“But for now, that’s your problem,” he pulls back, returning to his seat, “Because I am _starving_ and this was your idea. I’ll come help when my stomach isn’t screaming at me louder than that baby.”

Julian slides out of his chair, still smiling, and pauses to kiss Logan again, resting their foreheads together.

“I love you, you know,” he says softly, before he goes to scoop up the crying baby.

Logan digs into his food, ravenous. He can faintly hear Julian singing a lullaby from the other room, the sobs fading to tiny whimpers.

When he’s done, he takes over so Julian can eat. He isn’t quite sure what to do with a baby, but Julian’s singing seemed to have worked, so he goes that route. The baby stares with wide eyes, enthralled. She’s cute, he has to admit, with rosy, chubby cheeks and curly tendrils of hair. He strokes her nose with one finger, and her tiny hand darts up, each finger curling around Logan’s index finger. She’s so tiny — smaller than Logan can even imagine, and when he smiles she actually smiles back.

Julian catches them like that and beams. They sing together, softly, until she drifts off to sleep again.

By the time Nathan shows up to pick her up, they’ve all fallen asleep curled together on the couch. Logan’s the one who hears the knock and gets up, groggily, to let him in. The baby is curled up in a ball on Julian’s chest, and he has one hand placed protectively on her back. He’s fast asleep, too, but he looks so peaceful, until Nathan jostles him and he’s forced to hand her over.

Once they’re alone again, Logan holds out a hand, helping Julian off the sofa.

“I do want kids,” he says, softly, “Not anytime soon, okay, so don’t get excited. But I think you’d be a really good dad.”

Julian smiles, sleepily, and leans into him, “For the record, I think you’d be a pretty good dad too.”

They head upstairs, together, both crawling into bed utterly exhausted. Logan uses the last of his energy to pull Julian into his chest, holding him close.

“Love you,” he hears Julian mumble, right before he drifts off to sleep.


End file.
